What is Pain Telling You?

If you are starting a resolution of more exercise, congratulations! But please make sure you are not pushing through pain.

The phrase “no pain – no gain” is a set up for potentially long stint of rehabilitation or worse. Pain is your nervous system asking you to address something that’s vulnerable, injured and/or out of alignment.

The pain may be in the one part of the body but the cause of the pain may come from imbalance originating in another part of the body. For instance people who run to get in shape often experience knee pain. It can actually be caused by an inflexible muscle in the hip. In this case the muscle in the hip is holding the entire leg out of proper alignment resulting in instability and pain in the knee. The good news is that much of the time pain during exercise can be resolved by engaging in simple corrective exercises to stabilize joints and align the body. This dynamic situation is very common and relatively simple to address. Similar imbalances can occur in all of the joints in the body with any type of activity.

As always I’m happy to help you directly with acupuncture, herbs and therapeutic exercise or refer you as appropriate to one of my favorite colleagues in the fields of physical training, nutrition and chiropractic.